The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian

Thursday Dec 6, 2018

The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian

Hostess:  Michelle
Attendees:  Janna, Amy, Allison, Susan, Pam T, Lori, Cheryl, Pam M

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Guest Room, a powerful story about the ways an entire life can change in one night: A flight attendant wakes up in the wrong hotel, in the wrong bed, with a dead man – and no idea what happened.

Cassandra Bowden is no stranger to hungover mornings. She’s a binge drinker, her job with the airline making it easy to find adventure, and the occasional blackouts seem to be inevitable. She lives with them, and the accompanying self-loathing. When she awakes in a Dubai hotel room, she tries to piece the previous night back together, counting the minutes until she has to catch her crew shuttle to the airport. She quietly slides out of bed, careful not to aggravate her already pounding head, and looks at the man she spent the night with. She sees his dark hair. His utter stillness. And blood, a slick, still wet pool on the crisp white sheets. Afraid to call the police – she’s a single woman alone in a hotel room far from home – Cassie begins to lie. She lies as she joins the other flight attendants and pilots in the van. She lies on the way to Paris as she works the first class cabin. She lies to the FBI agents in New York who meet her at the gate. Soon it’s too late to come clean-or face the truth about what really happened back in Dubai. Could she have killed him? If not, who did?

Set amid the captivating world of those whose lives unfold at forty thousand feet, The Flight Attendant unveils a spellbinding story of memory, of the giddy pleasures of alcohol and the devastating consequences of addiction, and of murder far from home.

*******************************************************************

 Thanks Michelle for such a festive spread

We had a night of laughs and great conversation!  We mostly agreed that the book had us hooked from the start and kept us going.... until it didn't.   It kind of felt like we slammed into a wall at the ending.  Perhaps it was the phone call:  as in, when the author gets the call from his editor to "wrap it up."    In any event, we did agree it was pretty enjoyable, and considering it a good or bad read, it certainly helped generate some lively discussion!   We sort of slid through the rating system but it seemed like we gave it about a 2.5 to 3 stars.  

   Next month's selection is  Before We Were Yours, by Lisa Wingate.   Exact date in January and next hostess to be determined, so stay tuned.  

Happy holidays and happy reading!  

Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan

Thursday Nov 8, 2018

Beneath a Scarlet Sky 

Author:  Mark Sullivan

Hostess:      Mary Margaret

Attendees:   Janna, Amy, Michelle, Cheryl, Pam 

We enjoyed our opportunity to see Mary Margaret's new home!





Quick Synopsis from Amazon books:

Based on the true story of a forgotten hero, Beneath a Scarlet Sky is the triumphant, epic tale of one young man’s incredible courage and resilience during one of history’s darkest hours.

Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager—obsessed with music, food, and girls—but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior.

In an attempt to protect him, Pino’s parents force him to enlist as a German soldier—a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich’s most mysterious and powerful commanders.

Now, with the opportunity to spy for the Allies inside the German High Command, Pino endures the horrors of the war and the Nazi occupation by fighting in secret, his courage bolstered by his love for Anna and for the life he dreams they will one day share.

Fans of All the Light We Cannot See, The Nightingale, and Unbroken will enjoy this riveting saga of history, suspense, and love.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** 

We certainly found a lot to discuss, and as always the WWII setting brought so many back stories to life.   In this book we learned a lot about the persecution of Jews in Italy, Facism and Mussolini, and the psychology of Nazi masterminds... as well as some details of the underground resistance and the freedom fighters.  There were so many facets to this WWII story and we found that our memories from high school world history classes were being challenged...   Perhaps Janna declared the quote of the night:  "Education is wasted on the young"   How much more we would and could comprehend if we found ourselves back in classes today, this time eager and willing, and with more time to concentrate on learning all about a subject.     We also questioned what we might do if we were in a position to help others at the risk of our own or our family's safety....  would we?  could we?     This brought up comparisons to the current refugee crisis in Syria.    The epilogue of the book was probably the best part in tying up the rest of the story,  filling in blanks about Pino's post war life which was also quite interesting.   Beneath a Scarlet Sky  reminded us of a previous selection, Unbroken, and the opportunity we had to meet that protagonist, Louie Zamperini.   Pino Lella is still alive today, living in Italy.  We gave this book 4 stars

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Beneath a Scarlet Sky is also going to be made into a movie -some details can be found here:

https://deadline.com/2017/08/tom-holland-amy-pascal-pino-lello-beneath-a-scarlet-sky-spiderman-homecoming-1202148294/ 

December:
The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian at Michelle's house

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

October 4,  2018

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Hostess:  Amy
Attendees:  Cheryl, Janna, Susan, Myra, Gayle, Pam

“Compelling . . . spun with tender patience by Jones, who cradles each of these characters in a story that pulls our sympathies in different directions. She never ignores their flaws, their perfectly human tendency toward self-justification, but she also captures their longing to be kind, to be just, to somehow behave well despite the contradictory desires of the heart.”—Ron Charles, Washington Post

“Tayari Jones has emerged as one of the most important voices of her generation.”—Essence

“In this unforgettable novel, Tayari Jones tackles hard questions about pride, betrayal, and our capacity to forgive.”—Real Simple

"Novelist Jones writes brilliantly about expectations and loss and racial injustice, and how love must evolve when our best laid plans go awry."—Esquire.com

"Tayari Jones provides an essential contemporary portrait of a marriage in this searing novel. An American Marriage gorgeously evokes the New South as it explores mass incarceration on a personal level."—Entertainment Weekly

Our selection generated lengthy and varied discussion... marriage...accusations....victims.....incarceration....friendships....relationship challenges.  It was also timely to current events about accusations (Kavanaugh Supreme Court Justice nomination)   We didn't manage to do our usual star rating but this book got high ranks for creating great converstion.  

Next month's selection:   Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan    

Educated by Tara Westover

Thursday Sept 6, 2018

Educated by Tara Westover
Hostess:  Michelle
Attendees:  Amy, Cheryl, Mary Margaret, Pam M.

Educated:  A book that was both difficult to read but almost impossible to put down.  With echoes of The Glass Castle, this book tells the amazing, unbelievable journey of a daughter of Mormon survivalists: from her irresponsible upbringing to her self-education and achievements (such as a Ph.D in history from Cambridge University) 
She is relatively young to be writing a memoir, at age 31.

We started our meeting off with a videotape of an interview with Tara Westover.  Note her defiant RED LIPSTICK 

Her memoir generated much discussion and questions about childhood memories and their possible distortion, memory compartmentalization, psychological abuse, physical abuse,  family dynamics,  what is being truly "off the grid"....to name just a few topics....as well as the importance of having a good book editor!  We had so many unanswered questions about the author, her father, mother, psychopathic older brother, her other siblings, boyfriends, and her professors.   One question that kept coming up was why she kept returning to the scene of the crimes?  We also thought that some of the intensity of the horrible memories didn't match up to later descriptions, such as the severity of the burn victims and their resulting recoveries.   We were just dying to see a photo or two of her family.    We also were intrigued by her mother's herbal/ holistic business, Butterfly Expressions which appears on the internet to be a "normal" business.  (But does her mother pay income/payroll taxes?)    

 We were a small group for this month's meeting, but our own book club family, none-the-less :)

The book itself we rated about 3.75  but topics and passionate discussion we rated 4.75 stars

Next month's selection is An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Hostess:  Mary Margaret

Hum if You Don't Know the Words by Bianca Marais

August 2, 2018

Book:      Hum if You Don't Know the Words
Author:   Biana Marais

Hostess:     Amy
Attendees:  Michelle, Lori, Debra, Emily, Cheryl, Pam




Summary from Publisher's Weekly May 1, 2017:

Nine-year-old Robin loves detective stories. So when the police arrive the night her parents are killed, she mistakenly believes she is now part of her favorite radio series. It’s a harsh awakening for her to realize that South Africa in the 1970s is a place far more violent than those stories. With her parents gone, Robin’s aunt puts her in the care of a Xhosa nanny, Beauty, a woman with her own tragic secrets: Beauty has vowed to stay in Johannesburg as long as it takes to find her daughter, Nomsa, who has disappeared after a student protest ends in bloodshed. However, as the days stretch into months, Beauty finds herself growing increasingly attached to the motherless white child she is being paid to raise. Likewise Robin grows to love Beauty, despite knowing her dead parents would disapprove of her close relationship with the black woman. In this standout debut Marais handles topics such as grief and racism with a delicate intensity that will make readers fall in love with her characters. From the first few heartfelt chapters to a fast-paced and heart-wrenching ending, Marais has created a stunning historical drama that shouldn’t be missed. (July)

Overall consensus:  we really enjoyed this book  and gave it 4.5 stars, and highly recommend it.

Great characters and development;  we loved Beauty especially, but liked them all.  We learned quite a bit about the Soweto uprising June 16, 1976 and Apartheid in general.  Some of our members were about Robin's age (or younger)  in 1976 while some of us were college-aged that summer and thus were also less concerned about world events at the time.  This we contrasted to today's media-saturated world.  In 1976 there was less news coverage, young people didn't travel as much like today, and we were just in our own (self-centered) worlds at the time.   This book brought out so many topics to discuss, which kept things lively all night.   A great start to our book club fall! 

Group selfie challenges:  oops, cut Emily out of that one,  try again! Next book selection for September:

Educated by Tara Westover 

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

May 10, 2018

Hostess:  Michelle
Attendees:  Amy, Mary Margaret, Debra, Cheryl, Pam M, Pam T

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

“Backman is a masterful writer, his characters familiar yet distinct, flawed yet heroic. . . There are scenes that bring tears, scenes of gut-wrenching despair, and moments of sly humor. . .Like Friday Night Lights, this is about more than youth sports; it's part coming-of-age novel, part study of moral failure, and finally a chronicle of groupthink in which an unlikely hero steps forward to save more than one person from self-destruction. A thoroughly empathetic examination of the fragile human spirit, Backman's latest will resonate a long time.”

– Kirkus Reviews

****************************************************************************

This was our second book choice by author Fredrik Backman.  We previously read A Man Called Ove, and Beartown did not disappoint either.   We discussed so many aspects of this book late into the night.   It was so much more than hockey!  We (six out of seven of us) gave it 5 stars, with special emphasis on the varied characters and their development.  We were delighted to hear there is a Beartown #2 book (Us Against You) and most of us look forward to reading more about the Beartown story and what happens next to the characters we so enjoyed.   

Our next book after summer break is Hum if You Don't Know the Words, by Bianca Marais.

After summer break we will meet back August 2 at Amy's house.   Happy summer reading, and bring your suggestions so we can map out the next few months into fall.

Pachinko April 12, 2018

April 12, 2018

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Hostess:  Cheryl
Attendees:  Michelle, Janna, Susan, Allison, Pam T, Pam M

                 




    "History has failed us, but no matter."

This book gave us some excellent discussion topics such as 

discrimination, the yakuza (Japanese mafia), caste system, 

WWII history, orgy parks, pachinko parlors, and women's struggles.  

"Why do men always get to leave when they can't get what they want."

“Pachinko” chronicles four generations of an ethnic Korean family, first in Japanese-occupied Korea in the early 20th century, then in Japan itself from the years before World War II to the late 1980s. The novel opens with an arranged marriage in Yeongdo, a fishing village at the southern tip of Korea. That union produces a daughter, Sunja, who falls in love at 16 with a prominent (and married) mobster. After Sunja becomes pregnant, a local pastor offers her a chance to escape by marrying him and immigrating together to his brother’s house in an ethnic Korean neighborhood in Osaka. Together, they embark into the fraught unknown.

...Like most memorable novels, however, “Pachinko” resists summary. In this sprawling book, history itself is a character. “Pachinko” is about outsiders, minorities and the politically disenfranchised. But it is so much more besides. Each time the novel seems to find its locus — Japan’s colonization of Korea, World War II as experienced in East Asia, Christianity, family, love, the changing role of women — it becomes something else. It becomes even more than it was.

       (excerpts from the book review summary - The New York Times (by Krys Lee, Feb 2, 2017)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *                            

 We rated Pachinko 4.5 stars

 Next month:  Beartown by Fredrik Backman
 Hostess:  Amy

Bring some book suggestions for the upcoming months!

Here's a start:
Sing Unburied Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Salvage the Bones  by Jesmyn Ward
Hum if You Don't Know the Words by Bianca Marais
Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Anthem by Ali Smith
The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

Thursday March 1, 2018

Host:  Janna
Attendees:  Amy, Michelle, Pam T., Cheryl, Susan, Pam M.

From LitLovers Book Summary Guide:

The long-awaited, daring, and magnificent novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Visit from the Goon Squad.

Manhattan Beach opens in Brooklyn during the Great Depression. Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to the house of Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family.

Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war.

Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that had always belonged to men. She becomes the first female diver, the most dangerous and exclusive of occupations, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. 

She is the sole provider for her mother, a farm girl who had a brief and glamorous career with the Ziegfeld Follies, and her lovely, severely disabled sister. At a nightclub, she chances to meet Dexter Styles again, and she begins to understand the complexity of her father’s life, the reasons he might have vanished.

Mesmerizing, hauntingly beautiful, with the pace and atmosphere of a noir thriller, Egan’s first historical novel is a masterpiece, a deft, startling, intimate exploration of a transformative moment in the lives of women and men, America and the world. Manhattan Beach is a spectacular novel by one of the greatest writers of our time. (From the publisher.)

Michelle led us in a thorough discussion and we touched on many aspects of the novel.  We agreed it was well researched but thought that sometimes all that research got in the way of the plot or characters. The novel spread across a wide variety of settings and subjects:  WWII, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the mob underworld, The Merchant Marine, underwater diving, physical handicaps, pregnancy and abortion, to name just a few....  All of which provided good discussion topics.    We unanimously agreed that this was not necessarily Pulitzer material ( the author won the 2011 Pulitzer for her novel A Visit from the Goon Squad)            Did we actually remember to rate this? 

Apologies to any who did not attend this meeting due to the date confirmation/changes, or not being on the email master list.
Next month:

April 12th
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Hostess:   Cheryl

The Second Mrs. Hockaday by Susan Rivers

The Second Mrs. Hockaday
February 1, 2018
Hostess:  Pam M.
Attendees:  Cheryl, Lori, Michelle, Allison, Susan, Amy, Pam T.

We were not sure why there were different covers for hardback (beige) and paperback (red).

Amy never fails to give us the best laughs of the night :)

Slightly off topic, but....peacocks on planes?! As service animals.  Really? 

Synopsis from the Kirkus Review (Oct 2016)

Diary entries and letters form the basis of this novel about one woman’s experiences during the Civil War.

Placidia Fincher is 17 when she marries Gryffth Hockaday, an enigmatic major in the Confederate army. She spends two days as his wife before his redeployment, when she's left to run his estate and care for his child by an earlier marriage. It’s at least two years before they see each other again, and in that time, Placidia bears a child, and the child dies. The circumstances of the child’s birth and death are unknown in the community but much remarked upon, mainly because Maj. Hockaday could not have been the father. When he finally returns from war, he accuses his young wife of adultery and murder. This is the first novel by Rivers, an award-winning playwright, and it’s a remarkable one. She takes a collage approach to her storytelling, advancing the narrative through letters between Placidia and a cousin, diary entries, and more letters, written decades later, which finally uncover the truth of Placidia’s circumstances. Rivers is adept at doling out information in teaspoon-sized increments, which makes the book hard to put down. And while the Civil War–era language can seem stiff in the early chapters, Rivers seems to smooth out her syntax as the book goes along. There are moments of loveliness amid the struggles and hardships of war, and Rivers is able to depict scenes of horror without exploiting her characters or manipulating her readers. If this book is any indicator, Rivers is a promising talent and an adroit storyteller. Hopefully, this won’t be her only foray into fiction.

A compulsively readable work that takes on the legacy of slavery in the United States, the struggles specific to women, and the possibilities for empathy and forgiveness.

*************************

Hands down this book was enjoyed by everyone, even if some parts were a little confusing with the back and forth between letters.  There was enough suspense to keep our attention.  And all of the characters were well developed.  We also liked the author's use of the language of that era.  If you listened to the book on Audio, you were in for a real (Charleston) southern drawl, but was the female narrator age appropriate for Placidia's voice?  We thought not!  Overall we gave this book a solid 4 rating.

Next book:   Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

The Signal Flame by Andrew Krivak

January 12, 2017    The Signal Flame by Andrew Krivak
Hostess:  Mary Margaret
Attendees:  Cheryl, Susan, Michelle, Amy, Lori, Janna, Allison, Pam M.

 We rated this book 3.75  (mathematical law of averages)   It was slightly polarizing with some members really liking it, and an equal amount who did not; the plot dragged for some yet , for those who liked this book it was a quiet, sensitive look into one family's life with its tragedies through several generations.  The narrative was soft and eloquent for those who liked it and....boring for others.   Darden, Pennsylvania was also deemed a boring place.


Excerpts from the New York Times review:

The novel takes place in 1972, between Easter and Christmas, when the family is waiting for news: Sam has been listed as missing in action. The story begins with Jozef’s death, which diminishes the resident family to two: Hannah and Bo, alone in the big house built by Jozef and surrounded by his presence. (Hannah’s husband died years earlier in a hunting accident.) Building and woodworking are in the blood. Here’s Bo, for instance, on the day of his grandfather’s funeral: “He . . . sat down at a pale and simple table he had made with his grandfather out of beech felled on their land. He ran his hand across the surface of it as if to feel what he could of those days when he first brought the table into the kitchen and his grandfather touched the surface of it in the same way, and said, Well, son, I do believe you have found your work.”

Bo now runs the roughing mill, sharing the narrow profits with his workers. He and Hannah keep a dog, chickens and a cow; in the past they had kept goats. The connections between this family and the land run deep; on it they have raised food, shot deer, built houses and made furniture. Jozef’s orchard still bears fruit.But this domestic idyll has been carved out of a wild region in northeastern Pennsylvania, a place full of tempestuous weather and the danger that wilderness contains. Rattlesnakes, predators, rough terrain and, of course, guns. The men bring their own danger to any landscape.

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Guns are a constant presence. A hunting scene between old Jozef and young Bo reveals the family ethos: “They came through trees to the edge of the open field, where a silver horizon met silver grass bent down with frost and spread out flat before them. . . . His grandfather sat down on a large rock and levered a single round into the Marlin. Bo sat down next to him and moved his hands and feet to keep warm. They waited a long time, until the sun was bright and round above the horizon in the east, when his grandfather put a finger to his lips and pointed in the direction of where a doe had emerged from the trees. He slipped off his mittens, got down on one knee and brought the rifle to his shoulder. Bo followed the sight line of the barrel and saw that it was aimed not at the doe but at the low-slung figure of a dog like no dog he had ever seen, sleek and hunched and twitching at the far end of the field. He looked at his grandfather, as frozen as the grass, then back at the dog just as it leaped. The rifle cracked and the animal arced back in one round motion.”

The Vinichs are hardworking and responsible, good Catholics and good citizens. Their success seems like an immigrant’s dream, but the family is shadowed by grief. Hannah’s husband came home from World War II a silent, damaged man. While he was fighting in France, the carnage became too much to bear, and one day he walked away from his unit. Later he was accused of desertion, and when he came home he was put in military prison. He finally returned to Dardan, disgraced and broken. He never recovered. When he died the family suffered doubly, from the loss of his life and of his reputation.

Another local family has a complicated connection to the Vinichs. Jozef bought land from Walter Younger, during a period of financial duress. The Youngers were reluctant to sell and resented the loss of their property. They continued to hunt on it as though they still owned it. So tension between the families was already high before the accident: It was Paul Younger, Walter’s son, who shot Hannah’s husband in the heart. Hannah knew that her husband had never recovered from the war; she understood that she’d lost him before the shot. But she could not forgive the man who pulled the trigger.

In the third generation the two families have a more complicated connection, equally intense: Ruth, Paul Younger’s daughter, is nowpregnant with Sam’s child. The families, who have good reason to be at war, now have an urgent reason to find peace. Bo becomes a mediator between his mother and Ruth, and he also pursues a last clue as to his brother’s whereabouts.

Krivak is an extraordinarily elegant writer, with a deep awareness of the natural world. In spare and beautiful prose he evokes an austere landscape, a struggling family and a deep source of pain. The narrative follows the two families as they attempt to accept their deepening connection and Sam’s continuing absence. Krivak sets the grandeur of the mountain as a backdrop to the intimate drama of the heart.

There is no answer to the question of war, how much it can demand or who should suffer. Krivak, in this moving and eloquent book, reminds us that we are powerless over this presence in our lives. It will return, generation after generation, to our families. It will have what it will.

*****************************************

February selection:
The Second Mrs. Hockaday by Susan Rivers  (Cheryl)

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